


If it's any consolation

by Calculatrice



Category: Great Pretender (Anime)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Trust, or rather understanding of "I'd fuck you over but not THAT badly"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calculatrice/pseuds/Calculatrice
Summary: “I suppose it’s a bit too late to be offering help, but here I am,” Laurent says with a flourish of his hands, brightening his smile to just the right shade of insufferable.Edamura only blinks. “Too late,” he echoes without much inflection.(In which Edamura is drugged, and Laurent carefully does not contemplate hard boundaries)
Relationships: Edamura Makoto & Laurent Thierry
Comments: 28
Kudos: 420





	If it's any consolation

It’s a challenge to be suave against the backdrop of a dirty alley and a soundtrack composed of violent retching, but Laurent undertakes it with ease gained only through experience and a slight, purposeful disconnect from some of his emotions. As it is, he leans against grimy bricks like they’re golden and keeps his smile even if, he admits, this situation isn’t really one he particularly enjoys smiling about. 

Bending forward, he peaks around the dumpster between him and the now-silenced source of the retching - a pseudo wall of privacy he left like a peace offering. He can’t see much of the person on the other side other than the back of a fluffy brown head. But he can hear the quiet coughs, can convince himself he hears slow breaths. 

“Edamame?” He queries, voice light. 

There’s no response. 

Straightening, Laurent adjusts the collar of his shirt by rote and steps around the dumpster to the other side. There, Edamura is squatting on the ground, hand braced against his own section of grimy wall. Despite the pool of liquid vomit in his corner, he’s been lucky in keeping it off of himself - his shirt and blazer appear clean. 

He still hasn’t looked up. Laurent clears his throat.

Finally, Edamura turns his head to glance up at the noise. His gaze is just a bit off, out of focus. Laurent expels a sigh through his nose - in this aspect, Edamura has been remarkably less lucky.

“I suppose it’s a bit too late to be offering help, but here I am,” Laurent says with a flourish of his hands, brightening his smile to just the right shade of insufferable.

Edamura only blinks. “Too late,” he echoes without much inflection. 

“You needn’t scold me, Edamame.” Laurent reaches down and grasps the man’s arms, pulling him up and away from his corner. He steadies him as he stumbles, notes the lack of response to the manhandling. “I promise I’m already deep in self-reflection. If it’s any consolation, this was out of my hands.”

“Out of my hands,” Edamura mumbles back to him, tone considering.

“Exactly,” Laurent breezes, keeping one hand wrapped solidly around Edamura’s arm as he tugs him along. “So good to have you agree.”

Despite the daze he’s falling further and further into, Edamura takes the pull with rag doll-like compliance. It’s not surprising - for all the breadth of the effects gang drugs may produce, their one common thread has always been obedience. 

This Edamura is unsettling, but for now Laurent allows himself to be grateful. As fun as the other can be, Laurent would rather receive a furious berating in the comfort of their hotel suite. 

They slowly make it out to the main street, Edamura near-silently murmuring to himself as he walks by Laurent’s side, his swaying obvious but gentle. Really, he’s having an extraordinarily gentle trip. Laurent hopes he remembers every second of it, both for the embarrassment factor and the assurance- 

_“The one thing I swore I wouldn't touch was drugs!”_

-that he hadn’t participated in something repugnant. 

Laurent keeps his firm grip on the other’s arm as he swipes open his phone to call.

“All good?” Cynthia asks upon picking up. It’s her way of simplifying a host of questions into one, including _no losses?_ and _did you get the money?_ and most importantly, _did you fuck us?_

“ _Nickel,”_ he assures brightly. “I’ve got our boy here, too.”

“Really? Why aren’t I hearing him cursing you to hell? It’s a favourite sound of mine, you know.”

“Ah, well-”

“ _Kaasan,_ ” Edamura says quietly.

Laurent pauses.

Continues, “He’s a little compromised at the moment. Could you send a car?”

Cynthia is too much of a professional to needle him right away. “Kudou’s on his way,” is the efficient reply. “Send a location pin and he’ll be there soon.”

A moment, like she’s about to say something, before the line goes dead.

That much taken care of, Laurent turns back to his companion. Takes in the way the main street lamps light his wrinkled blazer, shirt collar standing half up like someone’s grabbed it. Takes in the far-away look, the hazy brown eyes that hadn’t glanced up even once through the entire phone conversation. Thinks about a very basic word in Japanese, said like an observation.

He’s certain the sound wasn’t loud enough to reach the receiver, but. It was more than loud enough.

“I take it back,” Laurent says to the ears of no one. “I hope you remember absolutely none of your trip.”

“ _Kaasan_ ,” Edamura says again, more urgently, not looking. 

“What do you think of a gang orgy? Or I could say you insisted on ballroom dance as your preferred method of movement and clung to me all evening. More fun to ruminate on than this, really.”

No response.

“Cynthia would probably want to come up with something else too,” Laurent muses, even though she wouldn’t because she, unlike him, can respect the harder boundaries. 

Edamura still isn’t looking at him. He’s looking decidedly at _something,_ but it’s beyond Laurent to see. 

And the one-sided conversation dies as Laurent’s skills finally fail him. The air fills with the sound of traffic and urban voices, yelled or hushed or somewhere in between. Laurent doesn’t allow himself to reflect, but he _does_ allow himself not to think at all.

He drapes his arm around Edamura’s shoulders, leaning down and in until the side of his head is practically pressed into messy brown hair and the smell of cigarettes. From this angle all he can see of the man are the fan of his lashes and the curve of his cheek, still unresponsive. 

“Don’t remember this, alright?” He murmurs into the other’s skull. Not pleadingly. “I’d really rather you didn’t remember this.”

The lashes blink. 

“... _Tousan?_ ”

Laurent shuts his eyes. Sighs. 

  
  


+

A bedroom door creaks open in their suite while they’re having breakfast. Edamura shuffles tiredly out, rubbing the stress circles clearly etched under his eyes. 

“Morning,” Laurent greets easily over his coffee, waving a hand at the spread of bakery pastries over the table.

Edamura freezes, jaw momentarily clenching, before he nods. 

“Good morning,” he says to something somewhere in the direction of the windows, dodging the table entirely for a bottle of water out of the fridge. Laurent watches his fingers trace every millimetre of the unbroken seal before he shuts the door. 

He’s not certain how to approach this. 

“If it’s any consolation-”

“That wasn’t planned?” Edamura cuts, not turning his way. His voice is tight, not angry. “I guessed, thanks.”

Taken a little off guard, Laurent offers a placid smile that goes unappreciated as the other continues drawing circles around his bottle seal.

“It is,” Edamura finally answers in response to the first question. “But barely.”

He skirts the table again and joins the more or less peaceful conversation on the couch. Doesn’t look at him.

Laurent takes another sip of coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> considering the lack of boundaries in these characters, I wanted to explore what might happen if you kicked at one of the few hard lines a character _does_ have, so edamame and drugs. did Laurent drug Edamame directly? no. was he aware it might happen? who knows. is edamura cool with that possibility? ehhh
> 
> ('Nickel' is French slang to mean perfect or awesome or whatever. It's used a lot where I'm from, and since we don't know what French region Laurent is from yet, I can make him say it lmao)
> 
> anyway please talk to me about great pretender there's like five of us total and i love this show


End file.
